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The Dead Don’t Care

Page 4

by Jonathan Latimer


  Her voice made Crane think of Minsky’s.

  Major Eastcomb was scowling at the glasses in their hands. “Have a good time in Miami?” he asked.

  Crane said, “I had a good time, but it was awfully hot.” He added, “We hurried back.”

  Essex was interested. “What time did you make?”

  “Forty-seven minutes.”

  “Not bad, but I’ve made it in an even forty in the Bugatti.”

  Crane was genuinely surprised. “That’s better than seventy-five an hour average.” He didn’t believe Essex, but he didn’t say so. “You must have pushed her.”

  “I had her up to a hundred and ten twice.”

  Miss Day said, “You boys and your cars.” She smiled at Essex. “You won’t mind if Mr O’Malley gives me a swimming lesson? I just know he’s a wonderful swimmer.” She rolled her eyes up to Mr O’Malley. “Don’t you think it would be fun?”

  O’Malley replied enthusiastically that he thought it would be fun. “Let’s go to the shallow end of the pool,” he said.

  “Oh no.” Her tone was a caress. “Let’s try the ocean. It’s so much bigger.”

  This was obviously true and she and O’Malley started for the beach. Crane gazed after them with envy. Miss Day’s back, a glistening brown to a point inches above the end of her spine, was perfect. He’d like to teach her to swim.

  Major Eastcomb said, “What d’you find in Miami?”

  Crane started to say, “A damned good bar,” but he thought better of it. Instead he said, “I ran across the trail of a friend of Miss Essex.”

  “Who?”

  “Count Paul di Gregario.”

  Anger made the major’s face tomato red. “What’s that impostor doing here?”

  “Probably up to no good,” said Essex.

  Crane said, “I don’t know, but we have a couple of men watching him.”

  Major Eastcomb’s teeth were clenched so tightly his jaw muscles showed white. “I’ll teach him to follow Camelia down here. Where’s he staying?”

  “At the Roney Plaza.”

  A noise somewhere between a squeal and scream carried to them from the ocean. O’Malley’s arms under her back, Miss Day was floating on the surface of the water, her kicking feet sending up a column of white spray. The surf had subsided; small waves licked the shore daintily, like kittens’ tongues after cream.

  “I’ll teach him,” said the major.

  Essex’ eyes were on the sea. He said, “What are you going to do about the note you got?”

  “I told him,” said the major. “I warned him to keep away.”

  “What can I do?” asked Crane. “Except wait. I am going around to see Roland Tortoni tonight.”

  Essex’ pale, youthfully dissipated face was surprised.

  Crane asked impatiently, “He has twenty-five thousand dollars worth of your I O Us, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes, but I’m not going to pay him. He’s crooked … his wheels are crooked. He can’t collect.”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you he might be using the notes to make you pay?”

  Essex clenched his hands. “He wouldn’t dare.” He frowned. “Besides, we’re friends. He’s given up trying to collect.”

  They could hear Miss Day’s laughter, high and piercing.

  Crane said, “I never heard of anybody giving up twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Essex’ hand pressed Crane’s arm. “I’ll see you a little later.” He hadn’t heard what Crane said. He went off in the direction of O’Malley and Miss Day.

  “Look here,” said Major Eastcomb fiercely; “this won’t do.”

  “What won’t do?”

  The major gestured toward Miss Day and the Atlantic Ocean. “You’re hired to work; not to sop up liquor and go rutting after women.”

  “Why not mention it to O’Malley?”

  “I’ll do that.” The major flattened his eyebrows in a scowl. “But the important thing is to keep an eye on Essex. One of you should have stayed here.”

  “You really think he’s in danger?”

  “I wouldn’t have hired detectives if I didn’t.”

  The major left him. Crane went over to the big table and had the servingman make him another planters punch. He ate five caviar canapés. He felt better. He still wanted to punch the major on the nose, but he now felt he could control this impulse. He took a drink and put his glass on the cement ridge of the swimming pool and dove in the lime-colored water. It was colder than he had expected. He was glad he had sent the major the nasty telegram.

  At the other end of the pool he encountered Camelia Essex and Tony Lamphier. They seemed glad to see him.

  She asked, “How was Miami?”

  Crane said, “Miami was wonderful.”

  She said, “Aren’t the tourists splendid?”

  “I am a sailfish,” said Tony Lamphier, writhing about on the surface of the water. He seemed to be drunk too.

  “Your friend sort of goes for Penn’s girl, doesn’t he?” she said.

  “She wanted to learn to swim.”

  “She always wants to learn to swim.”

  “I am a fish,” stated Tony Lamphier.

  Crane noticed a girl in black Chinese pajamas coming across the patio.

  Camelia Essex said, “At least you drink like a fish, darling.”

  “I can stop,” Lamphier said. “Any time you will.”

  “Fishes can’t stop, Tony.”

  “I can stop, darling.”

  Even from a distance Crane could see that the girl was different from any he had ever before seen. She had black hair and a white face, and she walked with short, gliding steps, as though her feet were bound.

  “Don’t stop, dear,” said Camelia Essex to Lamphier. “You’re so much more fun this way.”

  “Who’s that girl?” asked Crane.

  “What girl? Oh. That’s our mystery woman. She’s a dancer … a friend of Penn. Her name’s Imago Paraguay.”

  “She’s exotic,” said Tony Lamphier. “Don’t you think she’s exotic?”

  “Would you like to meet her?” Camelia Essex asked Crane.

  “Why not?” Crane said.

  Miss Essex put her chin over the side of the pool and called, “Imago, this is Mr Crane.”

  She had halted by Sybil Langley. Her figure, small, sharply breasted, slender as a lotus plant, was virginal. “How do you do,” she said in a soft flat voice.

  “She’s exotic,” said Tony Lamphier. “Don’t you think so?”

  Crane swam the length of the pool and climbed over the edge. He picked up his drink and went over to the table where the two women were now sitting. “May I get you something to drink, Miss Paraguay?” he asked.

  “Tha-ank you.” Her voice was lazy. “A sherry, please.”

  Miss Langley’s violet eyes, large, heavily mascaraed, blank as a sleepwalker’s, were fixed on him. “I think perhaps I will,” she said. “My nerves … I become so tired … so terribly tired.”

  Crane took her glass. “What were you drinking?”

  “Oh, nothing but scotch. I feel that to mix it impairs its medicinal value.” She swayed a little to the left, as though she were going to topple from her chair, but caught herself. Her face did not change expression. “Just a little, Mr Crane. Do not fill the glass more than halfway.…”

  Crane poured half of a Haig & Haig pinch bottle in her glass. A dipsomaniac, he thought. What a lovely household! A drunken old actress, a prize fighter (where the hell did Brown keep himself, anyway?), a super-sex strip queen right out of Minsky’s, a dancer who looked more Chinese than South American, an exceptionally sinister butler, guards. He felt the disadvantages of being rich almost outweighed the advantages.

  “Have you some sherry?” he asked the servingman.

  The servingman poured a glass of sherry and Crane went back to the table. Miss Langley was sitting very close to the dancer. She accepted the glass of whisky, said, “Oh, you filled it so full.”

  “Would yo
u like me to get a smaller glass?”

  “Oh no. Don’t bother. I shall drink what I can.” She was being very brave. “I’m so tired.” She put a hand on the dancer’s arm. “So terribly tired.” She smiled mistily at the dancer.

  Uninvited, Crane sat down. He felt an extraordinary interest in Imago Paraguay. “The sherry all right?” he asked.

  She smiled just a little. Her face was like an ivory temple mask, calm, bland, contemptuous; delicately dusted with rice powder, tinted under the eyes with blue, slashed with scarlet at the lips. The thin arch of her jet-black brows might have been made with a bamboo brush.

  “Tha-ank you, yes,” she said.

  One hand clasped by Essex, the other by O’Malley, Miss Day ran by the swimming pool. She was laughing loudly. She called to Crane, “When are you going to give me a lesson?” Her big blue eyes said that nothing would give her such a thrill as a lesson from him. So tight was her white suit that her breasts hardly moved when she ran.

  “Any time,” said Crane.

  The three went on to the servingman, ordered him to make bacardis. Without turning her face in his direction Imago Paraguay asked, “The tall man?”

  “A friend of mine,” said Crane. “His name’s O’Malley.”

  He felt her oblique eyes upon him. “He is haandsome.” There was lazy malice in her tone. “No?”

  “Oh yes,” said Crane. “Very handsome.”

  “And the Miss Day, señor? She is beautiful?”

  “Well,” said Crane, “she has a certain appeal.”

  “I thi-ink so, also.”

  He glanced at her suspiciously, but her slant-browed face was serene. She might have been contemplating Krishna in a rose garden.

  Miss Langley’s hand was resting on the dancer’s knee. “That woman,” she said, looking at Miss Day’s bare back. “To think …” As if conscious of their eyes, Miss Day looked around at them, smiled warmly at Crane. He was aware of a sudden tension in Imago Paraguay’s expression. Miss Langley dramatically put a hand on her forehead. “Oh, I feel unwell,” she said throatily. “Imago, come for a walk beside the sea.” She rose unsteadily.

  For an instant Imago Paraguay’s hand was in Crane’s, her sloe eyes on his. He felt his nerves suddenly become tense. “Go-ood-by, señor,” she said, her voice flat;

  “Come, Imago,” said Miss Langley.

  “I am co-oming.” Her Asiatic face was without expression.

  They walked toward the sea and Miss Langley took the dancer’s hand and pressed it against her side. A thought entered Crane’s head; a possible explanation of the enmity between Miss Langley and Miss Day. He felt a sudden anger and abruptly drained his glass. He would have drained Miss Langley’s glass, too, only it was empty.

  Chapter IV

  WILLIAM CRANE was slipping a silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his white shawl-collar dinner jacket when O’Malley came through the bathroom from his room. The Irishman looked very fine in a Burma-colored dinner jacket, black trousers, a white silk shirt with a dark green bow tie, a dark green cummerbund and dark green silk hose. His black hair, flecked with gray, was parted on the side.

  Crane whistled. “Boy! You’ll slay ’em tonight.”

  “I thought I’d get dressed up for Miss Day. She’s gonna show me some dance steps in return for the swimmin’ lesson.”

  “That isn’t all she’ll show you,” said Crane darkly.

  “Aw, you needn’t be jealous,” said O’Malley. “She thinks you’re cute.”

  “I am,” said Crane. “Real cute.” He adjusted his black tie. “Did you know she was Essex’ girl friend?”

  O’Malley’s broad shoulders moved forward, upward. “That’s his lookout, not mine.” He grinned at Crane. “Besides, I found out a lot of stuff from her.”

  “What?” asked Crane suspiciously. “That she doesn’t wear corsets?”

  “No. Seriously, she gave me an earful. She says, for one thing, that the major’s after Camelia … wants to marry her.”

  “Who wouldn’t, with all that dough?”

  “Well, Camelia’s really considerin’ him, Dawn says. She has it figured out this way: Camelia don’t like the major, being still soft over that count. But if she gets married a part of the estate comes to her, a couple of million, Dawn says. Then, with this dough, she can divorce the major and marry the count.”

  “So,” said Crane.

  “And Dawn says Camelia talked with Di Gregario over the phone today. They’re going to meet somewhere tonight.”

  “Let her,” said Crane. “We’re not down here to keep her out of people’s beds.”

  O’Malley grinned. “Dawn says Tony Lamphier’s soft about Camelia. He’s got dough, too, so it ain’t that he’s after.”

  “What about the Bouchers? What’ve they got to grind?”

  “Dawn don’t know. As far as she can make out they’re just friends of Camelia’s.”

  “How’d you get all this out of the dame, anyway?”

  “She likes to talk … to the right guy.”

  “For two bits I’d go after that babe myself,” Crane said, “and cut both you and Essex out. I’ll show you who’ll get her to talk.”

  “You better stick to that Chinese dame you were talkin’ with,” said O’Malley. “She’s the mystery lady in this joint.”

  “I’m good at mysteries. What’s the one about her?”

  “Well, Dawn says nobody knows what she’s doin’ here. She’s been here a week and hasn’t opened her mouth to anybody. She’s supposed t’be Penn’s friend, but he don’t pay any attention to her.”

  “Maybe he liked her when he invited her here.”

  “No. Dawn says he’s afraid of her. He’s always wanting to get away from where she is.”

  “So, he’s afraid of her.” Crane frowned thoughtfully. “That’s just fine. You’ll make a detective someday, O’Malley.”

  “Oh yeah?” said O’Malley and continued: “Dawn says this Imago and Miss Langley are—well, sorta queer.”

  “Aren’t we all.”

  “No, I mean … that way about each other. She says the old lady’s afraid of her, afraid she’ll take Imago away from her.”

  “Is she going to?”

  “Aw!” exclaimed O’Malley, shocked and grieved. “She isn’t that kind of a dame.”

  “No, I guess not,” said Crane. “Let’s go eat.”

  Everybody except Miss Langley was very gay after dinner. Miss Langley had a dizzy spell and had to be carried up to bed. Miss Day whispered to Crane, “I don’t know what’s come over her. She don’t usually pass out until ten o’clock.” Crane had made a considerable play for Miss Day at dinner and both O’Malley and Essex were watching him. O’Malley, however, was amused.

  They had Fundador, a smooth Spanish brandy, in the patio, and Crane suggested they go to Roland Tortoni’s Blue Castle. Everybody except Camelia Essex thought this would be fine. “D’y’know,” said Mrs Boucher, “I feel disgustingly lucky.” Crane thought she looked English. She was handsome in that lean, athletic way only Englishwomen can achieve without becoming masculine. Her long figure, in a black evening gown, had interesting curves. She would look well, Crane thought, on an Irish hunter, in tweeds on the king’s course at Gleneagles, on an African safari or in bed.

  Camelia spoke in Crane’s ear. “Do you think Penn will be safe there?”

  “If Tortoni’s after him,” Crane assured her, “it’s the safest place in the world for him.”

  “Aw, come on, Camelia,” said Miss Day, moving her torso slowly from side to side. “I’d like to do a little truckin’.”

  That settled it.

  Crane and O’Malley went up to their rooms while the cars were being sent around. Taking five one-hundred-dollar bills from his wallet, Crane gave them to O’Malley. “Let’s both watch Tortoni’s wheel,” he said. “This isn’t much dough to work with, but maybe one of us will see something crooked.”

  They discovered two cars in the driveway. Penn Essex wa
s at the wheel of a black and chromium Bugatti sport touring model and Dawn Day sat beside him. He called to Crane, “You and O’Malley take Miss Paraguay in the Lincoln with the Bouchers.” He raced the motor, sending smoke from the exhaust. “Cam and Tony and the major are coming with me.” With a deep-throated roar the car rolled away and a chauffeur brought up the sedan. “Would you care to have me drive?” he asked.

  “I’ll manage,” said Boucher.

  Moving in that short-paced glide of hers, Imago Paraguay came toward them from the door. Crane felt her curious attraction. She was wearing a bolero for a dinner jacket, of black crepe. Her skirt, split eight inches up the side, was of black crepe, but her blouse was red. Snug around her thin waist was a red sash, the bright tassel of which hung down in front to her feet, splitting her skirt in two. On her left hand she wore an enormous ruby, cut in the shape of a rectangle.

  “I am sor-ry to have made you wait,” she said.

  “The evening is young,” Crane said, helping her into the sedan. Her hand, against his, was cool.

  “So are we,” said O’Malley, closing the door. “Let’er go.”

  They went toward Miami at a comfortable fifty-five, miles an hour. Mrs Boucher seemed to be interested in Imago Paraguay. She lighted a Pall Mall and asked:

  “You like gambling, Miss Paraguay?”

  “Oh yes. I ha-ave gamble very much.” She might have been a cat talking, so miaowlish was her voice. “One time, in Ha-abana, I win thirty thousand do-lars in a night.”

  “What did you do with them?” asked Boucher. “Buy a house?”

  “Oh no. I lo-ose them another night.”

  O’Malley said:

  “Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!

  Bright and yellow, hard and cold.

  Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old

  To the very verge of the churchyard mould.”

  Crane gaped at him in amazement.

  Mrs Boucher said, “That’s a pretty compliment to Miss Paraguay’s youth, Mr O’Malley.” Her voice sounded amused.

  “But I do not spurn the gold,” said Imago Paraguay in her flat voice. “Oh no.”

 

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